


darling, can't you hear me

by middnighter



Category: Mission: Impossible (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Going Rogue, M/M, Post-Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015), a looot of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-10-03 03:29:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17276264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middnighter/pseuds/middnighter
Summary: Ethan had no idea what he would have done differently, if he had known.





	darling, can't you hear me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rosierey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosierey/gifts).



> very late birthday gift!
> 
> a lot of angst in this one, guys

Ethan had no idea what he would have done differently, if he had known.

There had been some warning signs —and the way Benji’s smiles sometimes turned cold alone should have been enough to alert him. 

But everyone who had a job at the IMF went through moments of doubt and uncertainty at some point, when facing just how real the horrors they worked to prevent every day were, and they always got out of it. So when Benji’s sense of humor turned dry and cynical, when the brightness of his gaze dimmed out, Ethan had worried, sure, but not more than he usually did.

He expected it to be back to normal soon —as close as they could get to normal, anyway. He hadn’t paid enough attention.

***

“Do you ever think about the job?” Benji said.

They were at a restaurant Ethan wanted to try out. He invited Benji to eat there with him because the last couple of missions didn’t go as well as they all hoped, and they deserved a break from the job —and Ethan thought that maybe, just maybe, they could share something more.

But Benji wanted to talk about the job, so Ethan wiped his mouth with his napkin and said, “What about the job?”

Benji rested his chin on his hand, looking to the side. “I don't know,” he said. “How we do things.” Ethan waited for him to elaborate, but he stayed unusually quiet, picking at his food with his fork without eating it.

“Well,” Ethan started, unsure of what Benji meant. “Sometimes, yes. But it's not like there's anything else, really.”

“There could be,” Benji said quietly.

Ethan didn't know what to respond to that, so he changed the subject. “A shame we missed out on Turandot, hm?”

Benji looked up from his plate, his face lighting up. “I would have loved to see it,” he said. “With you. Outside of the job.” 

“It's something we can still do,” Ethan said with a hopeful smile.

Benji hummed in agreement and brought his wine glass to his lips. When he put it back on the table, his mouth twisted sour, in a way Ethan knew had nothing to do with the taste of the drink —the red Ethan chose was amongst the best the restaurant offered. His mind was probably somewhere else.

“Look, if that was about last mission,” Ethan said, “I don’t think we could have done anything differently.”

Benji raised an eyebrow. “We could have killed Leavold before he pressed that button.” 

“That wasn’t the plan, he’s an asset. We needed him alive.”

“An asset who got away and blew up a building!”

“That’s not what we—” 

“It doesn’t matter! We could have saved those people, and we didn’t.”

“You think I don’t care about that?”

“No, no, I know you do. But the IMF, they don’t, not anymore. It’s no longer about keeping everyone safe, it’s about them getting more and more power! If they really cared about saving people, they would let us do our job the way it needs to be done, without interfering at every turn!”

“How can you say that? They’re the reason we’re doing this in the first place! We wouldn’t get to make a change without them!”

“How can you be so, so  _ loyal _ to them when…” Benji pinched his lips together.

“When what?”

“When they treat you so badly! How many times have they disavowed you and accused you of treason —you! Their best agent! Doesn't it make you want to— do something—” Benji stopped himself, his eyes pained. “Does it?”

Benji's gaze pleaded Ethan to understand what he meant, and Ethan stared at him, desperate to see where Benji was going with this, where Benji wanted to take him.

But Benji didn’t say anything else, and Ethan couldn’t find it in himself to follow anyone this blindly, so he softly shook his head and said, “No.”

Benji flinched and looked down. “Okay,” he said, swallowing. “Okay.” He stood up and grabbed his coat. He put a few bills on the table, under his wine glass. 

Ethan watched him leave and finished his plate in silence, shoulders heavy, an agonizing twist in his chest.

***

Benji didn’t come to work the following day, or the day after that, and Ethan didn’t want to think about it. 

Work was quiet for a little while, quieter than Ethan would have liked, without Benji chatting with him and showing him the blueprints of some prototype he was working on. After a week, Benji’s computer station was cleaned and emptied, and another guy was brought in. Ethan instantly found him insufferable.

After two months, Ethan got brought back in the field to investigate a military-grade virus that made three banks collapse. Ethan wasn’t a tech expert but he knew his way around programs, and this program had a very familiar signature style. 

“Why did you give me that case?” he asked Hunley, closing the door of his office behind him. Surely they did not need Ethan to tell them who that code was coming from, and asking Ethan to do that felt unnecessarily cruel. 

Hunley put down the files he was reviewing and looked up at Ethan from behind his desk. “Sit,” he said.

Ethan stood in the middle of the office, resisting the urge to cross his arms, to stomp his foot, to punch Hunley’s satisfied smile off his face. 

“It’s simple, Hunt. When we needed to find you, we went through him. Now that he’s the one going rogue…” Hunley waved his hand at him, letting him infer the rest. 

Ethan swallowed down the fact that he was going to have to bring his best friend in, and Hunley gave him an annoyed look. “You’re the one who knows him best, you’re our best chance at catching him. And besides, would you rather someone else do it?” 

Ethan thought about the other agents Hunley could have given the case to, agents who didn’t know Benji as well as Ethan did, who would not think twice about killing him to complete the mission.

And Ethan had to admit that no, he would not. 

***

Benji was good. Ethan arrived too late at the scenes, in the ashes of blown up buildings, that the IMF later found out were fronts for organized crime, or unethical research facilities. Some days he would find men knocked out and tied up in a nearby alley. Some days Ethan could only pace in the hallway while the computer guys combed their networks for his tracks.

Benji was good, but so was Ethan.

He worked with Luther to find something in Benji’s airtight code that they could use until his eyes burned from the blue glow of the computer screen. Eventually, they managed to find a weak spot they could exploit to get an location.

Luther agreed to give Ethan a head start before informing the IMF, and Ethan ran to the building, his mind racing with various plans regarding how to get Benji to come back to him, and how to take down his friend without too much hurt if that failed. A part of Ethan was screaming at him to consider getting on his knees and begging for forgiveness, for whatever it was that Ethan failed to do, for not giving Benji enough reasons to stay, for not having been able to help the way he should have, the way Benji deserved. 

Another part, quieter, but infinitely more terrifying, wondered if Benji would let Ethan come with him, if he asked.

Ethan reached the address. It was a little house —no emergency ladder to climb, no security to go through, no mask to hide behind. Just a door to push and a friend to confront.   

The blinds were closed, but light still shone through from under the front door. Ethan picked the lock as quietly as he could. The door opened with a soft creaking sound. He took his gun out of his holster and walked in, pointing it at the floor next to him. With very light, precise steps, he walked down the hallway, looking through the living room, the kitchen —dirty dishes in the sink were the only sign that the place was being lived in. 

Ethan slowly walked up the stairs. His shoulders were tense, his heartbeat racing. He found himself unable to quiet it down, the way he would on any other mission. Because it wasn’t any other mission. It was Benji.

After an eternity, Ethan reached the last step. One of the doors was ajar, and he gently pushed it open. It revealed a bedroom, with a desk and a computer, and the blinds shut tight. Benji was sitting on the chair, facing away from the door. The light coming from the screen highlighted the side of his face.

“Are you here to stop me?” Benji said. 

“Please come back,” Ethan said. “Don’t make me do this.” 

Benji turned around and faced him. “Make you do what, Ethan? Shoot me?” His expression was cold, and if Ethan didn’t know him as well as he did, he wouldn’t have been able to see the pain lingering under the mask.

Ethan reaffirmed his grip on his gun. “I will if I have to,” he said, forcing his voice not to shake and betray his uncertainty.

Benji closed his eyes for a second, a bitter smile on his lips. “Lights out,” he whispered.

Darkness swallowed the room. Benji leaped forward and his fist met Ethan’s jaw. A knee in the stomach made Ethan stumble backwards, enough so that Benji could push him out of the way and bolt down the stairs.

Ethan ran after him, his steps uneasy. He followed Benji out of the house and to the small bridge above the river, a block away. “Benji, stop!” he yelled. His gun felt extremely heavy in his hands. “Please!” 

To Ethan’s surprise, Benji did. He slowly turned around, his lips pinched together in a painful expression, and took a step towards Ethan, empty hands held out towards him.

“Can’t you see how the IMF has betrayed you at every turn?” Benji said. “Next time you disagree with them, next time they need someone to take the fall, you’ll be standing right where I am. Please, Ethan. Tell me you can see that.”

Benji was right, Ethan knew he was right. It didn’t make it hurt any less. “And what am I supposed to do about it? I have nothing else to live for! If I don’t have the IMF, what do I have!”

Benji’s voice cracked. “You have me!”

Ethan was close enough to see tears on Benji’s face. The rest of the team was on their way, and Ethan was sure of nothing, save for the fact that he couldn’t let Benji be captured and thrown in a jail cell. 

“Please,” Benji whispered.

He only had a few seconds to make a decision. “I’m sorry,” Ethan said. “I love you.”

And he aimed and fired the gun. 

The sound the shot made was so loud Ethan couldn't hear anything afterwards, he could only look as Benji stumbled backwards, mouth slightly open, and fell off the roof and into the river.

***

_ I didn’t kill Benji _ , Ethan thought to himself as he wrote down his report, explaining how there was no way he could have survived the bullet wounds, even if they didn’t find the body down the river.

He sat down at his desk and started to work on the mountain of paperwork he had been assigned.  _ I didn't kill Benji. I gave him an out. _

Ethan couldn’t focus on the paper, was barely even aware of the pen he was squeezing too tight. He was replaying the event of that night, and he knew, he knew, that he shot Benji in the shoulder, that the would couldn’t have been more than a hindrance, that he should be okay.

_ I didn’t kill Benji, _ as the signal from Benji’s network went dead, and the signs of his actions stopped.

_ I didn’t kill Benji, _ as his superiors congratulated him on the hit and successfully completing the mission, even if they wished they had been given a little more oversight.

_ I didn’t kill Benji, _ as they buried an empty casket. At the funeral, and later at home, Ethan willed himself not to cry, because if he did then it would all be real and he would have made the biggest mistake of his life.

Days turned into weeks, and Ethan wasn’t sure of anything, anymore. He remembered aiming at Benji’s shoulder, but he also remembered his hands shaking. 

He didn’t trust himself to go back in the field. He stayed in the office, doing paperwork until his hands and wrists were numb. 

He thought that getting back into a routine would help, but it only made more room for the loudest and most accusatory of his thoughts.

Still, there was something grounding about doing the same things every day. 

Waking up. Shower. Clothes. Coffee. Car. Work.

Ethan sat at his desk and went through his mail, setting aside the bills, the letters, the forms, the junk mail.

He was about to throw the junk mail pile to the bin, when he noticed that one of the enveloppes —that had a sticker spelling  _ You’ve won! _ in a big, colorful font— had a stamp from the French postal office. Intrigued, Ethan threw away the rest of the pile but kept this one. 

He opened it, and found a one-way ticket to Paris, and a ticket for Turandot. 

Ethan felt as if it was the first time he was breathing since that night. He squeezed his eyes shut, and when he opened them again the tickets were still there, and he let out a relieved sigh, his head in his hands. He looked around, and nobody seemed to have noticed that Ethan’s world turned around. 

He grabbed his coat and left the building, the tickets in his breast pocket, and his heart at peace. 

**Author's Note:**

> if you want to yell at me, my tumblr is @garykings


End file.
